Perfectly Good White Boy by Carrie Mesrobian (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Perfectly Good White Boy by Carrie Mesrobian Karen Coats Mesrobian, Carrie Perfectly Good White Boy. Carolrhoda Lab, 2014 293 p Trade ed. ISBN 978-4677-3480-6 $17.95 R Gr. 10 up High school junior Sean Norwhalt hooks up with pretty, popular senior Hallie, who wants to have a summer fling and lose her virginity before she heads off to college. Thinking they’re in love, Sean is thrown by her inevitable brush-off, but he adds it to the host of crappy things in his life, like his father’s loss of their home (Dad’s now in rehab) and his older brother’s verbal abuse. When he sees his convenience-store coworker, Neecie, hanging out with a guy Sean knows to have a girlfriend, she begs him to keep their secret, and this awakens in him a protective instinct that he didn’t know he had. The shared pathos of their compromised sex lives draws them together, and they become friends, even when they each break their promises not to have sex with partners who clearly don’t respect or love them. As in her debut, Sex and Violence (BCCB 12/13), Mesrobian explores the moral malaise of contemporary culture through characters who, though they long for something meaningful, have neither inner resources nor worthy models to follow. Sean’s narrative voice is deliberately artless, focusing on the small details of moving through each day and avoiding narrative shape or deliberate writerly elevation. Mesrobian’s subtle theme of the disposable nature of contemporary objects and relationships [End Page 219] is reinforced through literal details that have metaphoric impact, such as Sean’s narratively labored disgust at having to watch someone trim his nails and his rage over Hallie’s revelation that she had an abortion. This carefully crafted thematic makes the book more likely to be favored by literary critics than casual readers, but some teens will extrapolate from raw tedium of Sean’s daily experience to the emotional reality beyond. Copyright © 2014 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois